Work it like a pro-pro-pro, sit and watch it go-go-go...

Down, Down on Me, Put It Down on Me
(Jeremih ft 50 Cents- Down on Me)

Intermediate Lesson 28- Lots and lots of stuff

Today's dish is a seared veal tenderloin served with a creamy risotto and mushroom duxelle and asparagus sauce.

Chef Caals' dish.
The veal's underneath all that garnishes and above the risotto.

Searing the veal was pretty simple, but the garnishes for this dish was a pain in the neck. Chef Caals made all this looked so simple during the demonstration, but that's just because he's a pro and could manage everything  with ease. For me, I know I definitely got a bit disoriented having so many pans cooking at the same time.

You had to prepare the asparagus sauce by boiling the asparagus stems in boiling water, then blend the stems. Meanwhile, you have to cook the mushroom duxcelle, and begin sweating the shallots for the risotto. All ingredients must be served hot, so you can't finish preparing the garnishes too early in advance. There was a point towards the end when we were all using 6 stoves simultaneously: one stove for cooking the risotto (remember to stir constantly), one stove for preparing the Sauce Mornay (remember to stir regularly), one stove for heating the mushroom duxelle (remember to stir regularly), one stove to sear the asparagus heads used for decorating the dish (remember to stir regularly), one stove for making the jus (remember to degrease), and one stove for searing the steak. Good thing our class was in 2GS, a bigger classroom than the standard 1PS / 2PS, because we all had 6-8 stoves to work with, instead of the usual 4.

My dish came out okay. The veal came out very well cooked, but all my elements lacked seasoning. I admit that the risotto came out a bit weak, but the duxelle and the veal I thought tasted just fine. When a teacher consistently gave me the same feedback, my business school / consulting sides start questioning whether I am actually learning from the feedback provided. Perhaps for next class I should put down biblical proportions of salt onto my dish just to see how the chef reacts.

After class today, I ran into Chef Ju in the hallway. She explained to me that she had no more intermediate classes planned to lead, and I won't see her again in class since I am not doing superior cuisine. It was quite a teary-eye moment because Chef Ju has taken really good care of me. More importantly, because we’re constantly being rushed in and out of classrooms, I would always leave some equipments in the room, and Chef Ju, who for whatever reason always had the class after us would find my knives with their distinctive blue indicator tape lying in the drawer. She must have found hundreds of Euros worth of equipment for me over the entire intermediate term, including big knives like my cleaver, which she almost threw at my head for leaving it behind. Merci Chef et bon courage!

Quote of the class:

After a student expressing dismay at how Demo Chef Caals was contradicting himself in class.
Chef Caals: here, read this sign.  *throws out a magnetic sign from his collection of magnets. Sign says: Le chef a toujours raison. (The chef is always right.)
Me: Hey, that's just like what my mom has!

“Wait, no bacon today?”

-Student in demo class,

commenting on the lack of bacon because

we've had bacon as an ingredient

for almost every dish recently.

Al Di Lá Means You are Far Above Me, Very Far...

Al Di Lá, Ci Sei Tu Per Me. Per Me, Soltanto Per Me....
(Connie Francis- Al Di La)

Lesson 28- Veal Escalop à la viennoise, fresh pasta with cooked tomato concassé

We made a veal escalop today, which apparantly is the french name for Wiener Schnitzels, though we served it with pasta and chopped ingredients, instead of the salad or potatoes that one would expect in real Wiener Schnitzels. I mean even the chef said the frying style can be called a Milanese. We even serve the dish with olives and capers, which we know the French serve in Italian-esque dishes.

Then why isn't this dish not called Veal Escalop à la Milanaise? I don't know, I've given up understanding how the French thinks.

Boom

We had Chef Ju again. I'm definitely not complaining, because she's a really nice chef who gives good and friendly tips on cooking, while whipping your derrière when you mess up.

Chef Ju  had the wonderful idea of letting us work in teams and splitting up most of the work. We still had to serve our own dishes, and tenderize our own veal, but we split up responsibilities for preparing the garnishes, which we've all done before except for the fresh pasta. The end result was we finished early but still had to take ownership of our own plate.

I teamed up with So Mi, who was one of the most responsible and hard working person I've met at the school. She hand made the pasta while I made the sauce and egg garnishes (Sifted boiled egg). That's teamwork! Our dish came out really well, with only 2 comments: our sauce was not flavored enough (my responsibility, but I noticed that this is a consistent criticism that I get at Cordon Bleu. The French are just begging for more sodium) and our pasta was too soggy. I knew fresh pasta require far less time to cook than dried pasta (generally 30-45 seconds) but we must have left the pasta out for too long and the thing continued to cook with the residual moisture around it. Oh well, you live and learn. In the future, one should make the pasta as late as possible, and perhaps under cook it a bit so it could be al dente when it is served.

Quote from this class:

When the chef is explaining what cured meats are-

Student: Question, so is the meat raw or cooked?

Chef: It's raw, but salted.

Student: So we need to cook it?

Chef: No, it's salted. The salt cooks the meat.

Student: Will I get sick eating that?

Chef: No........ it's cooked

Student: But you said it is raw?

Chef: The salt cooks it.

Student: (Obviously still confused) Okay.

Grandma's cookin breakfast she makes pancakes the best.

Every day I see my dream.
 Every day I see my-every day I see my dream. 
Every day I see my dream. 
(LMFAO - YES)

Lesson 21- A typical Bistrot Menu

Our dish today is Côtes de Veau Grand-mère- Grandma Style Veal Chops.

Veal Chops

The veal chop was sautéed in a fairly simply, though it was hard to get right because you had to cook it for a long time to get the thick piece of meat cooked, but you can't leave it on the pan for too long or the skin will burn. The trick is to sauté the meat with its trimmings. Once the skin is colored you put the veal on top of its own trimmings to keep on cooking without being burnt. The trimmings also serve to flavor the sauce later.

Façon Grand-mère, Grandma style, just describes the mix of garnishes that we serve the veal with: glazed onions, sautéed bacon cubes, button mushrooms and lightly fried potatoes.

Quote of the class:
"Always taste your mussels because you don't want anyone to die from your food. If the mussel's gone bad, you will die first as the taster"

-Demo Chef Bogen, 

while teaching us how to prepare mussels (which we didn't make in practical)

Kiss Me Hard Before You Go, Summertime Sadness…

I got that summer time - summer time sadness… oh~
(Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness)

Lesson 19- Balanced Menu / Thickening a Sauce with Egg Yolk

Fall/ Autumn has most definitely arrived at Paris, with temperatures hovering stubbornly around 10C (50F) and the sun setting at 7pm. Time to say good bye to those endless days of sunshine and hot nights with cool breezes. Thank you summer 2013, you’ve been beautiful.

Perhaps it is fitting for the cold weather that today we made a traditional veal stew, garnished with button mushrooms and pearl onions made A l’Ancienne, which is similar to glazing but without drying out the cooking liquid or coloring the product. We served this with a Rice Pilaf.

Boom

In French cuisine, when you see the word “traditional,” you can bet that there will be an excessive amount of butter or cream (or both) incorporated. In this case, there’s a mind-blowing amount of cream in the stew sauce. There’s even butter stirred into the Rice Pilaf (Pourquoi?!). I have to admit, though, that this dish is really delicious. Just don’t eat more than 1 bite and you’ll love it.

The interesting part of today’s dish is that we thickened the sauce with White Roux (equal parts of melted butter and flour), cream and egg yolk. The egg yolk is the trickiest because it prohibits the cook from ever boiling the sauce again or the egg yolk will coagulate.

Review of my dish: Flavor was good. Veal was tender. Mushrooms and onions were well cooked. The only problem was that my sauce wasn’t thick enough. For whatever reason, despite following the appropriate ratios, my sauce came out too liquid. The chef recommended that I put some beurre manié to thicken it, but then you need to boil the sauce to activate the thickening agent, and that would cook the egg yolk. Great. Also the chef said I put too much sauce on my dish, but isn’t this suppose to be a stew dish?

No quote from today’s class, but I’m sad to report that I said “Oui, chef” to the train conductor when he asked for my ticket on my train ride back from Bordeaux the other day. FML.

Baby Grind with Me

Relax your mind take your time on me
Pretty Ricky - Grind With Me

Lesson 11- Forcemeat Stuffings- Part 1

Today we learned about making forcemeat stuffings. Forcemeat is made from a mixture of ground lean and fat meat "forced" through a grinder. The fat is necessary to grease the grinder, and you would start the grinder by forcing some chunks of pork fatback through before putting other pieces of meat through. This is the stuffing used in dishes such as sausages and pâtés, although we are just going to wrap the forcemeat with tenderized veal.

Stuffed veal rolls with glazed vegetables

Perhaps I still have a juvenile mind, but  when I saw the demo chef and assistant forcing meat down grinder I totally understand what people mean when they say "Laws are like sausage. It is better not to see them being made."The way the meat was forced out of the metal tubes all mushed together in a paste... I mean a fecal joke was just waiting to happen (it did, see below). It also didn't help that for whatever reason the grinder was going very slow with the food and the chef and assistant both pushed down really hard to force the meat through the system grinder for a good few minutes. Later on we found out it was because the grinder was set to its lowest setting, and after some adjustment the grinder processed through all the meat in short order.

I was supremely disappointing to learn that in our practical class the forcemeat would have been prepared for us already, and all we had to do was to marinate it and cook the damn thing. Maybe in the future I can try my hands on using a meat grinder.

We also learned how to make turned vegetables, which is this very complex way of cutting a large carrot into tiny bite size carrots shaped like an American football (or rugby, if you may). Do they not have baby carrots in France? Così should open a Parisian store and educate the masses here.


Quote from this class:
"I think the grinder is constipated. Just push harder! That's why they call it 'forcemeat'." -The translator providing colorful commentary as both the chef and assistant struggled to push meat through the grinder